What Do They (the Public) Want From Us?

Kevin P. Reilly, president of the University of Wisconsin System since 2004, suggests that we all need to take the question "What do they (public) want from us," more seriously:

Taken together, the four pillars of better preparation, more graduates,more research, and better dissemination and commercialization constitute my “More Better” prescription for American higher education to address our society’s most pressing challenges.

The two pillars in the middle are at the traditional core of higher education’s mission. Educating and credentialing our students, and carrying out cutting-edge research, define who we are. On either side of these central functions stand two others that we have not embraced as fully as we now must. What we do to shore up the two “bookend” pillars – preparing youth for postsecondary achievement and leveraging the results of our research – will increasingly define our success as 21st century institutions of higher learning.